Behind the Build: Evan Saskin - Blue Lion Building

Evan Saskin is an architect, builder, and founder of Blue Lion Building, an architect-led design-build practice in Toronto and now, Halifax, Nova Scotia, dedicated to creating thoughtful infill housing. Raised in a family steeped in construction—his grandfather an engineer and his father a McGill-trained architect and builder—Evan grew up surrounded by drafting tables and construction sites. Childhood visits to his grandparents’ Montreal apartment also left a lasting impression, giving him an early appreciation for urban density, modern design, and the comfort of well-made domestic spaces.

After completing an undergraduate degree, Evan pursued his Master of Architecture at the University of Toronto. While the school’s focus at the time leaned toward high-end homes and global commissions, he was drawn to the deeper question of how architects’ problem-solving skills could extend beyond form into regulation, finance, and systems. His early career took him to London, UK, where he joined a boutique practice working on intricate, high-budget residential projects. There he learned the discipline of exhaustive detailing—designing every surface and joint—and the rigor required to translate ambitious ideas into buildable realities.

Returning to Toronto during the 2008 downturn, Evan joined Architects Alliance, gaining expertise in high-rise approvals and development processes. Yet his entrepreneurial drive, coupled with hands-on experience renovating his own home, soon led him to found Blue Lion Building in 2011 with his partner Cameron. The name came from their street in London, a nod to the hidden, tucked-away places that inspired their approach.

Blue Lion focuses on missing-middle housing—duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes tucked into narrow Toronto lots—bringing architectural care to a scale often ignored by large developers. The firm manages the full process: land acquisition, feasibility, design, approvals, construction, and sales. Saskin’s projects embrace density while delivering bespoke quality, inventive layouts, and durable construction at accessible price points. With over two dozen projects completed, Blue Lion demonstrates how small-scale, design-driven development can address urban housing needs while enriching neighborhoods.

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome to Behind the Build. I am your host Jonathan Jacobs,
and today with me, a gentleman Iwas told I should have on the
program does things a little bitdifferently, actually somewhat
similar to another guest I had on Peter Brathwaite.
I have with me today Evan Saskinof Blue Lion Building.

(00:34):
Evan, thanks for joining. Yeah, thanks so much for having
me here. This is a, you know, I'm a fan.
It's really nice to be able to sit down and talk about
architecture and construction and all this great stuff.
Usually, Yeah. Well, so I want to start by
saying Evan doesn't pursue the exact traditional career of
architect. And I say this because if you're

(00:55):
out there and you're a student or you're an intern architect
and you're junior architect, whatever, wherever you are in
your career, if it's early in your career, just know that
there are different opportunities available to you.
And I see this because what you're practice is, is not just
architecture. So why don't you tell people
about what your practice? Is sure.

(01:15):
Before we dive into Evan's story, I want to take a moment
to thank one of our partners. The doors who approached.
Design as far more than just function.
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The doors are redefining what's possible in windows and doors.
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(01:37):
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(01:58):
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(02:20):
designers, making sure that whatever vision you have, from
traditional detailing to ultra modern minimalism, can actually
be built and delivered. For me, that's what makes them
stand out. They're not just supplying
products, they're enabling design.
And I look through their products every single day from
my studio here in the backyard. If you'd like to learn more

(02:43):
about The Doors, I'm happy to connect you with Martin, Marta
and their team at The Doors. e-mail me, It's Jonathan.
Jonathan at waldenhomes.ca. So I'm an architect.
Yep. First and foremost in a lot of
ways and I think that that's thelens that we look at for all of
the problems that we solve. And I couldn't do what I do

(03:06):
without my architectural education behind me.
But Blue Line building isn't an architecture for like the main
thing that we do is run this company, which is the design and
build office behind infill housing development really all
over Toronto, but especially in some kind of West End urban

(03:27):
neighborhoods. And so primarily what we do is
act as a manager of the entire development process like land
acquisition, financing, feasibility studies, all of the
figuring out what to do on a site, designing it, getting it
approved, really obsessing over the unit mixes, all of the

(03:50):
traditional architectural scopesand interior design scopes.
And then we build them. It's like a pretty fine grain of
like general contracting in house, complete them, finish
them, market them, sell them, and always at this small scale.
So there's like a huge range of work that we do, but in this
very tightly vertically integrated niche of just like

(04:14):
infill housing 345 units on a site in Toronto, that's what we.
Do got it. OK, well, and thank you for the
for the understanding and description of what the what
the, how the business manages itself.
And I say this because, you know, there's, there's so many
different avenues that you can take in an architectural design
degree. And this is a very interesting

(04:35):
one to take on. So now having established what
it is that you do at the highestlevel, let's go into what led
you down this path of obsession with seeing through all of the
details associated with sure with this.
There's yeah, there's a real satisfaction in like finding

(04:57):
your niche, I guess at some point.
But we didn't get here on on purpose, right?
Even in hindsight, it barely makes sense.
The beginning, the beginning, the beginning.
Yeah, like, yeah, were you? Were you 2 1/2 and took some
crayons and drew on your wall? A little bit.
OK, so my, I guess to go all theway back, like my father's

(05:21):
father was an engineer, worked at an engineering firm more
involved than like industrial processes and making factories
and things like that. It's like Russian Jewish
immigrants to Montreal and the you know, the 30s, forties, 50s
and and they did some cool modern architecture as a result

(05:43):
of being who they were. I think there's like a Mark
Pharmaceutical factory that had the first ever bit of curtain
walling Canada, but he lived in an apartment that is not like
thing that we really have in Toronto, but in Montreal there's
a much I think richer historicalapartment building typology

(06:03):
where people have these larger multi bedroom family friendly
units. And so I think for me, this idea
of modern architecture and obsession with design and kind
of like comfort, domestic life, you know, your grandparents
baking cookies and all that kindof stuff, along with that, that
aesthetic and sort of like denser, more cosmopolitan urban

(06:29):
housing types, like those have all been really tightly swirled
together for me forever. So that's I guess where it
really starts. The So how, how old were you
when you when you were in Montreal?
You were you born there. No, sorry.
So I was born in Toronto. Are you born?
Toronto, this is just going. To oht God God it got.
Five hours down the 401K and, you know, like a lot of my

(06:52):
friends here in Toronto neighborhoods, their parents and
grandparents all lived in housesand suburbia houses.
Yeah. And here are my grandparents
that lived in this like cooler to me, like denser urban teak
wood cabinetry, kind of, you know, polished brass ashtrays in
the hallways. And it's kind of like brutalist

(07:13):
concrete building like 8 storieshigh on Sherbrook.
And it just, I guess I've alwayshad this idea that that idea of
like home and comfort and like higher design and luxury and
city living could, could be likea little more tightly integrated
with each other than like the usual models that we saw all

(07:36):
around. That description of design and
comfort being intertwined reallyresonates with me is it also
brings to mind one of our partners who's built their
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(07:59):
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Each space is carefully composedfrom Sub Zero and Wolf to Melee,
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(08:21):
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What sets Kaplans apart is theirservice philosophy.
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Their specialists guide you through the selection process
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(08:44):
overwhelming you. And when it comes to delivering
installation, they're dedicated scheduling department takes on
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Isn't that combination of heritage, expertise and care
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(09:06):
special? They elevate what could be a box
store errand into an experience that's about design, quality and
Peace of Mind. To find out more, e-mail needs
Jonathan Jonathan at waldenhomes.ca and I'm happy to
connect you with their. Team that didn't really
translate into an architectural practice for for a long, long

(09:28):
time, but like that was always just sort of there as this
background ingredient of like domestic life and what else it
could look like. So that's like the, I guess pre
early side of it. My dad was a builder.
My dad went to architecture school at McGill in the 70s.
So I definitely always grew up with like drafting tables and

(09:48):
blueprints around. I always had summer jobs on
construction sites just like pushing a broom before swinging
a hammer. And I was so pretty like small
bookish kid. But I always at the same time
like had a lot of just comfort around being out construction
sets and, you know, walking intoconstruction sites whenever I

(10:09):
saw them and, and just feeling like that was how drawings
turned into buildings. And so that was always really
sort of a piece of the puzzle ofit.
Also that when we started having, you know, years and
years later when we started building an architecture
practice, it became clear that running construction sites was
always going to be part of that also.

(10:33):
And then trying to think of whatelse is like the he ingredients
to, to how we got to where we are.
You know, I got an undergraduatedegree, but then I went to UFT
to get my masters in architecture like 2000 and then
0456. And at that time the school was
really going through like a couple of different main schools

(10:57):
of thought, but like housing wasn't really a big part of it.
And so I wasn't really thinking about housing at that time.
There was definitely a condominium boom going on in
Toronto, but I think people wantlooking to that as examples of
exemplary architecture. And so in school we were a lot

(11:21):
more obsessed with like very, very high end single family
homes and more actually settingsright there is this whole sort
of like Zaha Hadid era of sort of budget less international
museum commissions, which was ofcourse, you know, just like.
Part of a falsity. Yeah, but like, that was

(11:43):
definitely part of our aestheticdiet at the time.
And then the people that were working there in those years, I
think were really thinking deeply about that question, like
architectural process and what are the things that architects
really do and what other things can that problem solving skill
set apply to? And that's really stuck with us.

(12:06):
Like that's really stuck with mein a deep, deep way that to be
an architect is to have these tools for describing buildings,
for communicating with other people about buildings, you
know, plan, section, elevation, the architectural detailing.
It's just like a language for abstracting and, and
communicating with other people about what a building is and how

(12:27):
it functions. And that has really stuck with
us is like those are the tools that we use to make more
interesting spaces that solve other kinds of problems.
And I'll get there, but like those are the tools in a lot of
ways that we're using now to solve regulatory and financial

(12:49):
problems in a lot of ways. Like we're the people who
navigate changing bylaws and changing tax codes and changing
building codes and understand, like, what are the architectural
implications of all of those things?
That's a big, big part of who weare, right?
Practice now. But but it wasn't that way when

(13:11):
when it started, I and I wanna ask you, was there?
Did you have a parent? Like was your was your dad
saying like you, you've got to go follow this path or no, or
was it was? Wonderful about that.
I had a whole other degree underunder my.
Belt, I know. I came to architecture school.
I think you know, well, I grew up with a real comfort around

(13:35):
the industry. It was like relatively age, like
I was 25 years old. He for I really thought about
this as a career and and before then it was a whole bunch of
different things. That perspective on process and
how things come together remindsme of a quanta.

(13:57):
There are pool companies that take the same kind of design
first forward thinking approach only in water.
That idea of seeing the whole process from permissions to
construction really resonates very similar to another partner
that we know takes a similar design first detail driven
approach, but in a different medium.

(14:20):
A quantum pools approach their work the way an architect
approaches a building. They don't just drop a pool into
a backyard, they engineer the entire environment around it.
One of the smartest parts of their process is how they
literally build a protective structure around the pool during
construction. It means weather doesn't slow

(14:40):
them down, timeline stay intact,and clients can trust that the
project will finish on schedule.Their product line is European
in origin, sleek, refined and built to perform for decades,
but without the inflated European price point.
It's high quality engineering paired with practical value.

(15:02):
What makes a Quanta special is that they see water as part of
the architecture. Every decision from hydraulics
to finishes to lighting is considered with the same care
you'd give to a home. They bring forward thinking
solutions and deliver a finishedproduct that feels integrated,
timeless and truly custom. If you'd like to learn more,

(15:25):
feel free to e-mail me. It's Jonathan.
That's Jonathan at waldenhomes.ca and I'm happy to
connect you with their amazing team.
What? What was your dad building?
Housing at scale, so sort of subdivisions and like larger
scale city infill townhome projects and some towers as

(15:47):
well. Like it was a whole sort of
growth trajectory through my teenage years in the 20s and
beyond. But at that time, yeah, it was
really about sort of Toronto andthe immediate environs of
Toronto and mass housing like ina very different scale from what
we do. Like I don't think we've ever
built more than four or five units at a time.
I don't think he ever built lessthan 40 or 50 units at a time.

(16:09):
So there's a difference there. But but nonetheless, this sort
of understanding of, you know, how the sausage gets made, like
how how housing gets permitted to exist in places where it did
it previously. Right.
OK. And so did you find yourself, as

(16:30):
you started to take more interest in this, did you find
yourself going from like the kidthat may or or and I'm making
assumptions. So actually, I'll rephrase this
question. Were you in an interested person
in, in the, in the position yourfather had in, in construction,
or did you just kind of accept it as this is what dad does?

(16:50):
And then when you became more interested in that field, did
you start to engage in those conversations?
OHP that came much, much, much later.
It didn't know, you're right. It wasn't, I think, I mean, I
had like a happier urban middle class childhood and certainly
like recognized that there were things about engaging in

(17:10):
construction and architecture that could, you know, be part of
an adult life, I guess. But but no, there was no direct
kind of like it's time to followin the footsteps and and do this
again. No, that came much, much later.
And I think the sort of mentors and other influences that I've
had along the way have been a lot more circuitous for for

(17:34):
better or worse. But you know, we've tried a
number of different kinds of things before getting here right
out of school. My wife was in Graduate School
in the UK in London. So I went to London to find a
job as an architect with like a freshly minted masters degree

(17:55):
architecture. It was really hard.
It was like my first time going to a place where I wasn't from
there at all. I had a two year visa, but I
had, I had not gone to school there.
I had no friends or connections.I was just saying the
connections element. Yeah, like, just nothing.
I think Google Maps had been released that summer.

(18:19):
So I mapped out every single architecture firm in the City of
London. And I would take a different bus
out to the end of a line and walk home and stop at every firm
along the way with my like huge black portfolio case.
And just like cold call knock onthe door.
I have since as a person who hires people, come to realize

(18:42):
that that probably wasn't the most efficient or effective
process for getting a job, but it gave me a great education of
the city and the way that infrastructure works in like an
ancient, enormous, complicated city and housing and the
architecture firms there are always in the most tucked out of

(19:03):
the way places. Like if the architecture firm
is, you know, number whatever 22on like Penny Weather Lane, then
you're like, you finally find this thing which is like a dead
end that's only accessed off theend of some other street and and
the houses only go up to 20 and you can't figure out where 22
is. Like, so that was really.
Like a great, it's etched in stone on the ground.

(19:27):
It's etched in like a stone in my soul right now.
Like the trauma was there, but we I walked in the door like the
100 and something place that I went into and Hannah Corlett is
an architect there who is still have like a good mentoring
relationship with who is just a few years older than me.

(19:47):
But at the time seemed like, youknow, a real adult where I was
like a freshly graduated architecture school student and
brought me into like a small husband and wife firm with three
other interns. And we did incredibly high end
housing, like single family houses with, you know, like 10s
of millions of pounds in construction budget.

(20:09):
And it was a good time to be doing that kind of a thing.
And it's it seems as though the education you received when you
were UFT and looking at all the budget list Zaha Hadid stuff
ended up coming to fruition whenyou went to the UK.
So there was a there's actually a connection.
It's funny you would say Zaha Hadid, we entered a competition

(20:30):
I wasn't involved in. This was like weeks before I
joined that firm and they entered a competition for the
Iraqi National Assembly buildingas a blind competition and they
won. Their submission was picked as
like this is the building that that the whoever decides the
Iraqi finance minister awarded it to.

(20:51):
And they opened the envelope very much expecting it to be
Zaha Hadid as the name of the entry and it wasn't there.
I think they were all like, who the F is Assemblage architects
in London, UK. And there was this sort of
awkward moment where they're like, we're totally OK to give
you the prize money, but can we still hire like ZH to build the

(21:11):
building? And I think my guys like, yeah,
we don't know how to deliver like $100 million building and
everything country. We're like a husband and wife in
their 30s with three. Injured and we would love to
take the cash so that we could go figure this this practice
out. So it was so I guess in
hindsight, I showed up there just shortly after they had a
bit of a windfall. And she later confessed to me,

(21:34):
you know, we didn't know the University of Toronto, but you
like walked in and had a clean shirt and spoke well and figured
if nothing else, he could answerthe phones like this is an
acceptable person. And then I just like voraciously
learned, right? Because we were detailing, it
was like a garden. And underneath the garden there
was a swimming pool. And underneath the swimming pool

(21:55):
there was a banquet hall. And so there the amount of
structural engineering and exquisite detailing and you just
draw everything like every single face of the building gets
drawn. And it come out of architecture
school where we you know, you'rein the technology, you learn how
to recognize good quality drawing, drawing about big

(22:18):
ideas. But this was my first time
pulling together from from zero to construction, like the
instructions on how to build a building and they knew some
things about building buildings.I've been on construction sites,
but I mean, like we're a long way from Kansas at this point.
This is not stick framed infill housing.

(22:39):
Everything here is like concreteand steel and like at most 3mm
tolerances. Nobody knows what a 2 by 4
because they have accents. They don't know what a bath is.
They laugh at me for like the way I pronounce things, joinery
and millwork. And so it was.
It was great, like a great, great, great time of my life and

(23:00):
early marriage and like learninga new place and how Housing
Works there. But like it was a whole other
like postgraduate education in, I don't know, I still really,
really aspiration like architecture at its highest
level. Was what I find really
interesting about this. And if you're listening, I've

(23:22):
kind of said this a lot over thelast little while, but now you
got to imagine at the time of which this is happening, like if
you want to have a call with some consultant on this and you
want to like screen share like we do now, that was not
happening. I know like not at all.
You're, you're finding ways to meet in person.

(23:44):
There are either flights or there's, you know, if you're
lucky if you if Skype is workingat this point consistently.
Taking the tube to the Mechanical Engineers office,
because I've printed out his drawings and coloured in with
seven different highlighters what each of the supply and
return mains news are and telling him I think he can
untangle them. But we couldn't do that over the

(24:04):
phone. I guess people have fax machines
We didn't. Fax scanners, yeah.
Never quite. Worked well.
That that's what I'm saying is like this was a time when the
simplicity, the basics of the simplicity of being able to now
communicate with each other is such a an element of you take

(24:26):
for granted comparatively to what you have to deal.
With. 20. Plus, years ago, I swear it was
this century, but like we, we didn't have indoor plumbing.
Like we had to go outside and across a courtyard to, to go to
the loop. Like it was definitely a little
bit of we were not the most technologically advanced.
We didn't have all the modern creature comforts built into

(24:46):
that place. Are you coming to work?
Well, here's a diaper. Exactly.
It's just across the courtyard, unheated actually.
Do you know what? So there's a connection here
also. So our company is called Blue
Lion Building. And Cameron, my wife and I lived
on Blue Lion Place when we livedin London.

(25:07):
And that when we started this, Ithink really it's a tiny little
nothing of a street. It's a driveway.
And you know there's this idea in in London specifically that
the geography is so complicated that in order to become like a
taxi cab driver there, you have to learn every single Rd.

(25:28):
I read this National Geographic article about this and it takes
like 4 years to kind of shove all the information into your
brain. That whole body of information
how all the roads work is collectively known as the
knowledge. We know Google Maps either,
right? We had the ADA Zed is like a
spiral bound flip book that is like an.
Ounce of the city. The Burleys.
Yeah. And so I guess the National

(25:50):
Geographic article said that these guys, the topography of
their brain actually changes youCAT scans of these guys and the
shape of their brain alters whenthey absorb the knowledge.
But on the river occasion that Itook one of those cows, they
still didn't know where. Blue Lion, the place was and I
and then you would describe, youknow, it's over here off Long
Lane, whatever. And yeah, no problem, they find

(26:12):
it. But the idea that even in this
incredibly well mapped urban dense place, there could be this
tiny little tucked away thing with really cool weird housing
at the end of it. We were in an old wallpaper
factory at the time that really resonated with me that like even

(26:34):
in it amongst all this density, there are secrets, lots of them.
And they're cool. Like they're cool places to
live. And so housing being kind of
hidden or secret or special in some way is like really core to
the Blue Lion identity and, and his name for that line.

(26:55):
And where was your wife working at the time?
She was a student. OK, so she said that.
She said that. Graduate work there.
And. Our art history so yeah, yeah,
because we were it was a great trial by you know everything.
And then 2008 came and like financial collapse and we came

(27:16):
back to Toronto and I got a job here at Architects Alliance
where my friend who now runs andthen dance studio, but at the
time had a job at that A and introduced me to someone there
and if my experience. Is Daniel.
Yes, if I experience it in in London, finding employment was

(27:38):
was ruling my experience in Toronto was was maybe unfairly
easy in the opposite extreme. It was like we came back for a
weekend and before I came I had a half dozen job interviews
lined up and like 5 out of six of them gave offers of
employment and it was just seamless.

(27:59):
And we sort of came back here and slipped right into for life
and worked with Peter Cruz for four or five years there and
really sort of put my head into high rise construction and the
development industry in Toronto.And I knew even then, like I

(28:21):
said to Cameron early on then, that it was really sad about
leaving London, that if we came back to Canada, I didn't think I
could just be an architect here.It felt like in London there was
so much to do architecturally. There's just so much fabric to

(28:41):
attend to, new buildings to build, old buildings to
rehabilitate, an openness to spending money on architecture
and the way that seemed really exciting until it just dried up,
right? But here, I don't know not to be
like a cynic and it was a lot. I wasn't 30 years old at the
time, but I definitely already sensed that at that time, 2008

(29:05):
Toronto didn't seem to me to have like the same kind of
opportunity. I think we've been good later
about finding and building thoseopportunities and creating new
things, but at that time, like Ijust didn't see.
It right? So I detailed high rises in
rearranged, you know, parking spots.
For a couple of years I was gonna ask you so like what is
sorta look like when you were doing something so it.
Was. So interesting.

(29:27):
I don't know it was. High rises in parking spots
High. Rises and parking spots, you
know, I got really into the approval processes and
understanding the bureaucracy. Internally or with the city?
With the city, you know, yeah, with the city, it was pretty.
It was like a 3040 person firm. It wasn't like an A massive

(29:49):
political organization by any stretch.
I think it was like you got you got to bloom where you're
planted, you know, and so I really got deep, deep into that
and into the construction side of it and into understanding.
Like in London are document setswere a set of instructions for

(30:13):
how to build the building and word bespoke gets thrown around
a lot. But I think there was really
something there in London that making a house for a person of
like an incredibly wealthy person is a process of taking
measurements of every aspects ofof their life and their

(30:35):
lifestyle and crafting an architectural solution to meet
it perfectly. Yeah.
Like what are your habits of eating and showering and
clothing and preparing for your day on what kind of daily and
seasonal rhythms? And how can we invent things
that are like long lasting and delightful and beautiful that
like embrace and not coddle, butjust like perfectly contour

(30:59):
themselves around a life like that?
It's like a great question to beasking.
And, and it shouldn't be reserved purely for the kind of
highest, highest, like most expensive kind of architecture.
But we learned the skills there in Toronto.
I mean, I can go off about the Toronto condo market and maybe
we should, but at that time, ourdrawing sets were much more like

(31:24):
a legal document for navigating 1A sequence of approvals
processes with the city. The city says we're going to
grant you permission to construct X number of saleable
square footage so long as you satisfy all of these engineering
studies and criterias and planning approval processes with
consultation of all the appropriate authorities.

(31:45):
And it seems incredibly Byzantine.
You kind of zoom out, map it all, but like, it's a bit
complicated system. I like big complicated systems.
So you learn about that. And then subsequently it really
again, functions as a component,like the document set, the
drawings become a key component of a legally binding agreement

(32:09):
between, you know, you, the architect, and the people who
are funding the construction of the building and the
constructors of the building. And so it's much less about
what's the correct way to adapt to your process of making
breakfast and much more like, how do we make sure that we have
breakfast meeting facilities forall 386, you know, households

(32:31):
that are going to be in this building, right?
I have subsequently learned to like place a lot less value
judgment on one of those things over the other.
Like housing is housing and everybody needs it and problems
have to be solved. And to the extent that you can
bring like love and care and empathy into both of those
processes, like that's really what makes it good.

(32:52):
But the mechanisms that trigger your boss getting paid are, are
really different in those two worlds.
And. So subsequently also allow you
to get paid. Yeah, of course.
Like I am even employee at this phase in my career through and
through. And were you feeling like, were
you, were you satisfied with thework that you were doing or were

(33:13):
you feeling like it wasn't really resonating with what was
kind of burning inside of you orhad that not happened yet?
It's a great question. I think at the time, I thought
that I wasn't deeply inspired bythe architectural work that we
were doing. But I also think in hindsight,

(33:35):
like I would so clearly not be capable doing what we do with
the amount of like control and understanding of the process had
I not spent literally years shipping away these much larger
processes. So do I wish that I could go
back and said, I think I spent two years doing the construction

(33:57):
drawings for a tower, 224 cans, like directly across the street
north of Roy Thompson Hall. It's like really skinny, tall
tower. I must have spent, I don't know,
weeks drawing every exit stair in that building.
Do I think that everybody needs to spend weeks and weeks drawing
exit stairs and buildings in order to become, like, a

(34:18):
professionally fulfilled architect?
Like, I don't. But was it necessary in
hindsight for me to do that kindof thing in order to understand
how all the different pieces fittogether?
Like, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there's something
to be said for building that empathy, not just for the

(34:38):
occupant of the building, but for the person who's going to
build that building. Like, sure, it took me weeks to
draw all the stairs, but there'sa much more capitally intensive,
labour intensive process of fabricating and installing all
of those stairs. And the stairs are the spine of

(35:00):
a building. Like if something's off, you
don't have a built-in. Like you can no longer comply
with building codes. And it ties together all the
floor plans and all the buildingsections.
Like they are the thing that takes a building from an idea to
like a functional permanent partof your city, right?
So. The monotony is a requirement.

(35:22):
And it must be approached with like rigor and intellect and
you're bringing to bear like allof these sort of human centred
design ideas as well as all of the like regulatory, just like
frameworks for these things. I mean, to this day, there's a

(35:43):
few things now I have so much respect for.
I will not go to like a special building, like a rarefied, you
know, museum or generally museums, but like he's sort of
like our like sports stadiums. They're like anytime I'm in any
kind of celebrated exquisite building, I wanna go see exit
stairs. I wanna go to the bathrooms.

(36:04):
I designed a loading dock for theatre park.
That was that 224 King project. And Peter Cruz looked at the
dries. I was like, like, why is this
garbage? And and I was like, like, it's
the loading dock. It gets a garbage truck into the
building and out again. The turning radius is there like
all of the city, like the city has these requirements.
They're all here. What do you mean the loading
dock? Looks like at the Museum of

(36:25):
Modern Art though. Both.
Yeah. Plane ticket.
Like, I went to New York for a day and we went to look at the
loading docks at MoMA, which in hindsight is insane.
But like, we, we went to MoMA and we, the two of you and me
and my manager at the time, OK. And Jane is the guy.

(36:47):
Yeah. And like we I don't know what
point Peter was trying to prove.They're selling a little
mercurial about the whole story,but like, damn it, like momma's
got an exquisite loading dock. And so there is something to be
said for, I don't even know, like great architects bringing

(37:08):
that greatness to everything that we do.
And I guess like I at that time also needed a little bit more
humility visited upon me that just like everything that's part
of these buildings is a pretty permanent part of your city.
And if the only person that's going to interface with on a

(37:29):
daily, you know, level are the people who are bringing their
garbage to it and the, you know,employees who are taking the
garbage in and out of it and theodd person who walks or drives
by it. Like that's cause enough to
bring your A game and everythingyou've got.
To it. If it's not done correctly, then
there's then you're bottlenecking the street because
the truck has to wait and can't make turns and.

(37:52):
My first design met all the technical requirements.
OK, I think that. Sorry to offend.
Like listen, create like the first one met a level of like
competency, but but the second and the third one is where the
time somewhere like OK, like we're going to do this right?
It's about more than just I havethis rant that I bring U in our

(38:13):
office all the time, which is like the building code isn't a
document that tells you how to build buildings.
The building code is a definition for what it means to
fail as a building. Everything that doesn't meet
this standard is literally not good enough to exist.
So this is a low bar. Like we're not looking to this
for guidance on how to make great buildings here.

(38:35):
We're looking for this for a legal definition of what it
means to not fail. This is like your 50th
percentile and should be treatedaccordingly.
They do not have the city, the end user, everyone who's going
to live here. Their best interests are not
captured in the building code. The building code is about

(38:55):
keeping the worst and most cynical people from visiting
their worst upon the public. That's it.
And, and while compliance with that standard is of course a
legal requirement, I think it's really essential to think for
yourself about what all of thosematerial and spatial and like

(39:21):
constructive relationships are like in a finished building and
how you can imagine them to be like, that's the good stuff.
And I think this whole like loading dock episode, which I
haven't talked about in forever and is honestly like insane.
And the next time I run into Peter, I have to ask him like,
what, what were you thinking putting us on a plane to get

(39:41):
inspired about a loading dock? But it worked.
I mean, here it is like baked deep inside of me.
Like this is what matters. Compliance isn't enough.
You've got to bring your A game to everything.
And, and that's the architectureside of it.
So then at the same time as thisis like 2000.

(40:04):
Now 9/10/11, my wife and I bought a house for a price that
we don't mention to like anyone below the age of homeownership
in like in a Toronto neighborhood where we were able
to do some work to it to like fix it up.

(40:25):
And my boss was really cool about me being like the GC on
that job site. And so I would be at site like
6:30 every morning and I'd be there for like 2-3 hours.
And I used to be, Peter was likea super early morning guy in the
office at seven. I was in the office at 7.
I started getting the office at 9:30 and like staying later so
that I could like, be on site, maybe like run there and back in

(40:47):
a cab over lunch. But we fixed up this house on
Brookfield St. and we were able then to like live there and then
sell it at like, really profit. And my wife and I and Cameron
was sort of always really involved in the design process

(41:09):
of this from early on. Like how should it function as a
space? How well So what's what's
Cameron's background? Then she went to school in the
UK. We didn't.
Say for what? So Cameron was doing her masters
in our history has a background in in in art and historical
actually like Renaissance art. So like deeply into aesthetics

(41:30):
and the history of like furniture and domestic objects
and, and obviously like paintingand sculpture of that era as
well was sort of the big topic, but can't set too.
And so throughout our time together, I think we've just
always felt like in a lot of marriages, like really obsessed
over those details of domesticity and building a life

(41:55):
together and having meals together and hosting people in
your home. We didn't have kids at this
time. Um, we do, we do now, but just
like we're both sort of quiet, bookish, attentive to the
details people in a lot of ways.And so I think we were both just
happy to like build and share a language together.

(42:16):
Even like in our kind of early basic student apartment, things
around, you know, like little domestic touches of comfort have
been like a place where we've always been really like
interested around the what are the more luxurious ways to deal
with these things? How can we like, do that
ourselves? What are the ways in which, you

(42:37):
know, being aware of all the stuff that's out there?
And yeah, just that whole like design integration of interior
design and architecture and housing and domestic life and
like comfort and luxury and travel and home, those axis have
really been like tied together around like that idea of home

(42:59):
for us. And so the first house that we
built was like a house for us, but it was also very much like a
house for a demographic that we were really like, representative
of, which was sort of people buying like a first, second home
in a neighborhood that was stillkind of affordable but like,
accessible to downtown and was sort of very inhabited by an

(43:21):
aging population whose kids weren't living there anymore.
And so that was just sort of a wave of, you know, urban growth
and gentrification in the city that we really like a part of.
So I started to do the second project like that.
And my boss was like, oh, just just like we were cool with you
doing this once, but at a certain point you gotta side

(43:44):
like, are you an architect who works here or are you like
building and flipping houses? And, and that would, and in
hindsight, I probably as like a boss now, maybe would have had
that conversation sooner, but you know, that was done with
significant grace and tact. And I was like, oh, of course
you're in. I love my job.
So let me go interview some contractors and I did and I

(44:08):
should get the figure, but I wasearning like fifty $55,000 a
year at that point. And all of the contractors that
interview were taking fees that were way higher than that to do
our next project. And so it became pretty clear to
me, like I think I'm a contractor now.
So I quit my job. I think I'd like.
Just I think I'm a contractor now, yeah.

(44:31):
So that's what I did. I had like just taken my
licensing exams. I think I was like in the first
wave of people coming out of my program to take the licensing
exam. There's another guy who Mayer,
Kelly Doran, who you should totally talk to, who the two of
us just like crammed together for a week and took our
licensing exams and got our licenses.

(44:53):
I got my stamp right away. I incorporated.
And at that point, just as like Ethan Saskin, architect talked
to like a practice advisor at the OA, which is incredibly
essential. I guess you reached out to
people early on like if you wantto run a design build practice
things, If you want to run a design build practice, gotta go
talk to the OA because there is organizational and legal

(45:18):
complexity. And even though we sort of face
the world as blue main building,there's like a whole
constellation of legal back end that allows us to be the
designers and the builders whilecomplying with, you know,
regulations right to ground thatstuff.
So we have that house. We bought a piece of property on

(45:38):
Markham St. like a 25 foot wide lot which seemed.
Enormous. My parent, my dad, grew up on
Markham. Street, OK up in we were like on
the block just north of Dundas. Yeah, or like the 5th or 6th
house north of Dundas there close to the market.
It's like a beautiful location. And we figured out pretty

(45:58):
quickly that we could build 2 houses pretty similar to the
house we just built on Brookfield St. on this 125 foot
lot. And this was like, was it 2013?
Yeah, importantly it was 2013, which is when the City of
Toronto had just introduced brand new zoning bylaws across

(46:18):
the city. And one of the important changes
in those bylaws is that they redefined the word duplex prior
to 13. Like the 86 bylaws, A duplex was
2 units that are wholly above and below each other.
And the assumption there is thatlike somebody lives on the
ground floor and somebody else lives on the 2nd floor.

(46:41):
Great. And in 2013, they introduced the
word wholly or partial. And that word partially, I don't
know, like glowed off the page at me when I read it, like how
partial is partial? Because if they're only a tiny
little bit above below each other, but mostly a side or like

(47:03):
in front and in back to each other, then that just seemed
like there was incredible creative potential as an
architect creating housing typologies that felt really good
to live in as like house like dense urban tucked away, but you
know, well designed things that were partially above and below

(47:28):
each other. And what we came up with there,
it's maybe going to try and describe it verbally, but that's
like there were, there were two front doors that faced Markham
St. and the ground floor of the building was sort of like like
the Cancer Zodiac sign. Like there were two front doors
in the front, 2 back doors in the back.

(47:49):
But one of the units kind of swelled U to be mostly the front
half of the floor plate and the other unit sort of swelled up to
be mostly the back half. So is there a hallway?
There was no shared hallway because there were two doors.
Yeah, no, I followed that. Was there a hallway from one
door to get towards the back? Yes, Yeah.
Yeah. And that hallway was above the

(48:11):
front units basement and below the front units second and third
floor, right. And similarly, the front unit
had a hallway to access the backyard and parking spot off
the laneway. Yeah, I'm I'm envisioning like
the Ying Yang sign. Yeah, exactly right, yeah, yeah.
And and there was a little like dot swell like a powder room off
right off of that hallway. So it was very much like the yin

(48:33):
Yang side. Yeah.
And then on the upper levels they were fully split front to
back. So this before laying my sweet.
Yeah. Yeah, the rear unit felt
incredibly cool, like you had these views that you wouldn't
normally have. You had the width of the floor
plate, which you wouldn't normally fill in a lot of these
units. And it felt like a house, like

(48:54):
it had a basement and a ground floor and a second floor and a
third floor. It was a whatever that one was
like two 1600 square foot 3 bedroom house and another one,
both of them on the same lot. And then because of the work
I've done it architects Alliance, I understood how
condominium registration processes work.

(49:15):
And so I felt like we're just going to, you know, we'll bring
the surveyors in and we'll get the property boundaries and work
with a condo lawyer. We'll register the docs and
we'll ask the city to give us a draft plan and they'll give us
the ECS conditions and like, well, we'll satisfy them and
we'll have a condo. And so we did.
We had a 2 unit condo and there were hiccups along the way but

(49:36):
like we did and we were then able.
It's funny, as you say, hiccups.Now you know what I envision as
the hiccup? I'm thinking about being in a
plane and hitting turbulence. There was turbulence.
Yeah, I just feel the plane dropand then, Oh yeah, we can write
the ship and we'll we'll land inthe same spot.
Oh, man. Yeah.
Because once you do one, it's OK.

(49:58):
Like, you know, it's possible. But the first one is this
Voyager. Like, I believe there's a thing
that we can arrive at. I should emphasize that nobody
believed in this. Like I spoke to lawyers and
actually lawyers were cool because it was abstract enough
that they weren't saying, well, no ones ever done this right?
Planners and architects were were really pushing back on this

(50:23):
idea. Like what you're gonna just like
real estate guys in general, like real estate Realtors and
then financers and what you're gonna like the two unit condo
board? What if they don't agree like
they're going to have? To I was gonna say, I assume
that the real estate agents werepretty happy to come around when
it was done and say, can I sell this for you?
We have found people who really see things our way also, and

(50:47):
that's been a gift, yeah. But there were definitely look
challenges for them along the way too, to have to explain like
there's a reserve fund. Yeah, there's a board like all
of this stuff we had to navigate.
Hmm. And I like to think that, you
know, back to that like architecture school obsession
about how do you ring this architectural mindset and like

(51:10):
obsession over documentation, like how do you crap
architectural solutions for these kind of more legalistic
problems? For us, it's like the kind of
thing is a perfect example. We you have to draft.
Have you bought a condo before? Undoubtedly you have listeners
who have yes. And so they've received, you
know, disclosure statements and condo docs and declarations and

(51:34):
rules and we said, great, let's like draft all of these things.
It's like whatever, it's not 100pages of leak, it's a lot, but
it's all like 100 pages of legaldocuments.
Like I can read this and draw itand understand what it means.
And let's draft all of these so that they are as much like a
semi detached house as possible.Because when you say condo,

(52:00):
everyone in like Toronto especially has a mental image of
a certain kind of, you know, size of tower with an
underground parking garage and that kind of like window wall
with like all the shadow lines and the mullions that bump out
and spend a little bit more on the glass at the ground floors.
Like the ceilings would be 15 feet high.
So like it's what they're seeingis really the cities zoning

(52:21):
guidelines for like mid rise andhigh rise buildings.
But that's what a condo is, whata condominium is a legal
framework and Ontario since 1986for a group of people to
collectively own a real estate asset with collective rights and
responsibilities to each other, while also individually owning a

(52:46):
piece of that real estate asset that they could buy and sell
without the consent of the. Yep, it's a great description,
very easy. It took awhile to get.
There. No, didn't, no, no.
Got there at the right time. No, it took the 15 years before
this conversation. OHF source.
Well. I'm glad we didn't have this
conversation 15 years ago. And and so then it just felt

(53:09):
like all the pieces were in place.
We knew how to look at pieces ofland and determine what could be
built there. We knew how to design buildings
that would really in that like from our London experience,
bespoke way cater to the lifestyle of an imagined but

(53:30):
like real demographic of people who wanted to like buy houses in
that neighborhood. Yeah, we now would like built a
couple of these things and understood that building code
constraints and we're building up a really good network of
plumbers and electricians and Tylers and landscapers and kind
of filling in the rough edges ourselves.
And at this point, I think we were still like a two person

(53:52):
company. Free person was it was just you
and Cameron and maybe someone else on the side.
And then we brought in another guy, Alex Azar.
He was like an early employee Who these are my guys.
Like there's always someone in every year of architecture
school who got into it because they love buildings and then

(54:15):
they got out of school and I found things to love in
detailing the parking garages and window wall details, but
like. Hold on, what about what about
stairwells? And stairwells, of course.
Stairwells. You had to detail the exit
stairs properly. There is a prevailing opinion
that doing that. And to be fair, I did it for 3-4
years, not 20 plus. But like there is a prevailing

(54:37):
opinion that this kind of work is like soul crushing.
And, and I think for that kind of person who really gets into
it because they love construction and then find
themselves doing these like legal binding document
architectural drawings And dealing with that very
antagonistic culture of builderswho thinks architects don't

(54:57):
understand how buildings work. And architects who are
frustrated that builders aren't following their drawings.
Like that clash leads to a lot of bitterness and anger and
resentment. And I like to say that for that
person, like I have your dream job, you're going to come work
with me. You're going to wear steel toe
boots. You're going to drive a truck.
You're going to be on site for like 7080% of the time building

(55:20):
a nice duplex, triplex, fourplexbuilding.
And the rest of the time you're going to be in the office with
me. You're going to own a CAD file.
We're going to detail the envelope together.
You're going to use this CAD file that you own, like I got a
permit in. But after that, it's your CAD
file and you're going to do all the lumber takeoffs off of it
and all tile takeoffs off of it.And you're going to own it.

(55:43):
You're going to draw the building and you're going to
build the building. And that's been like we've
really blessed in a certain way.But I think we are providing a
job that doesn't really exist. Even another design build firms
where like you as one person canbe the designer and the builder
and have real authorship under our, you know, guidance.

(56:07):
Cameron and I are setting parameters here for how these
buildings are going to function.They're going to look like, but
it's a really easy for me to saycollaborative process
internally. And that's been like great for
us like for 10 plus years we've been able to sort of provide
that job to people. And but what I continue to for
forever, like it's a job I wouldhave really thrived in early in

(56:30):
my career also. So what year did you find the
practice? In 11. 2011, yeah.
OK. And so and how many projects to
date have you completed? 26 or 27.
So it's a like, it's like 2-3 year, Yeah.
It's like a slow steady. Which which ultimately can also

(56:54):
be correlated to, let's say if it's two to three-year and
they're anywhere from a duplex to a quadplex.
Yes, you're talking about them like like 789 units.
Per year. Yeah.
And then we really try, not justwe try like we really commit to
everything was one like you're in a duplex that they're not the
same 2 units there be like we'llthrow that wrench into force

(57:17):
ourselves to do that. There's never a 5050 split.
We never split the triplexes. Is it equal thirds?
We always find some sort of niche or something variations
that you have to like not repeatthe bath, you're not repeat the
kitchen, think about the stairs differently.
And of course, over whatever that unit count is, you know,
30-40 fifty units, you start to be like, I like this solution

(57:38):
better than that one. Like this laundry room works
better upstairs and this one works better or whatever.
But but it really forces you to take advantage of every inch on
the site, every inch in the envelope, every inch in the
building and in a way that just like requires invention.
And it's really frustrating whenyou're only like 7080% of the

(58:00):
way there. Like this doesn't work.
And I know it can and I know it will, but it doesn't work today.
Like we're going from here. I've got a floor plan where I
know we're going to get all the pieces to like shake and settle
out somehow, but something's gotta move downstairs and
something has to rotate. And we took an indent on this
side and maybe it needs to go onthe opposite side.
And I love doing that maybe morethan anything that I do

(58:23):
professionally. But like it, it's not working
until it's working. And that process of being
almost, but not quite there is like a incredible frustration
and, and really requires just that level of trust in the
iterative process that like working with a really small

(58:47):
trusted group of like team members at this point, we can
reiterate and reiterate and reiterate until we find it.
And I think that thinking reallyin facts for better and worse.
But our construction management processes too, Yeah, where
you're like the budgets $1.8 million and it's going to be
$1.8 million. And we used to think we were
going to put, you know, this much into the windows, into the

(59:07):
kitchen. And all of a sudden that's
starting to like flip a little bit.
But something can only take whensomething else gives in that.
Again, I Bruce is one of the owners of the company.
He always likes to use analogies.
And it's funny, I I do too, but mine are completely different.
And my my analogy for this is like you're working with a small
group that understand how to build the Jenga tower.

(59:34):
Yeah, totally. There's like a there's a Tetris
sinus about it. Yeah, and, and, and I say it
because you play Django with someone that doesn't understand
it. And it's like the tumultuous
relationship that can occur between a builder and architect,
where if you're working with someone that understands how to
play the game, you're probably going to be able to get the

(59:55):
tower passed 36 stories, so. I don't, I think this is a story
that doesn't show me in the bestlight, but I'm going to share it
anyway because it's nice. About my wife.
Cameron and I were playing Jengawith a friend who had like,
recently moved to Canada and wasunfamiliar with it.
Yeah. And I explained the rules as
like, I take out a block and putit on top.

(01:00:16):
And then you take out a, a blockand put on top.
And we try and do it in such a way so that it like falls down
on your turn instead of mine. And then my wife described just
like, no, like you take out a block and put it on top.
And then I do, and we try and doit in such a way that we could
build the tallest tower that we can.
To correct. And I felt like, oh man, I've

(01:00:37):
been. I've been playing this wrong.
A much gentler way to think about this I like a lot better.
Like resonates with my values a little more than I thought.
Oh man, I'm just showing my hand.
So, so, so, so is there. I think that one of the more
interesting elements about the way that you describe what you
do is that this is not a cookie cutter style of construct of

(01:01:01):
design and construction. This is really taking all of the
elements that you have learned over all the years and that you
continue to want to expand upon and develop completely net new
designs on each one of these projects, which really give the
owners an opportunity to be ableto have something that is
completely accustomed to them intheir ownership.

(01:01:25):
Like a fordable ability is an incredibly fraught word.
But all like I speak publicly with spreadsheets up on the I'm
happy to be very transparent with everybody about all of our
costs and revenues and everything else.
We definitely provide a custom home like housing thing at a

(01:01:46):
much lower price than the same kind of house would in that
location. Like the value proposition of
what we do. There's a whole development side
to this that like I'm happy to get into, we don't have to get
into, but like there's a whole real estate partnership,
financing, construction, debt element to what we do also run a
Development Corporation. And the value proposition of

(01:02:08):
that is that you can, if you want to live in this location by
real estate, it's all location. But if you want to live at
whatever, Loren Ossington, you can live in a more expensive
thing that's just like this. You can live in a smaller thing
that's just as nice. You can live in a thing of this
size and this location that is like much, much doesn't provide

(01:02:31):
the same kind of amenities or square footage.
Like you've got to find the thing to sacrifice on between
budget and quality and location and size.
And I think we've sort of shakenthose up in a way that doesn't
exist anywhere else in the market, which is like we over
deliver on quality, which itselfhas this sort of like design

(01:02:53):
ambition about interior designs that are experimental and imbue
personality instead of just likewhat's in offensive, right.
And so there's just much more care there, even if it's more
individualistic to us in our taste and, and, and also just
like construction quality, like we're so obsessive around

(01:03:15):
building science and materials and systems and experimenting
with cladding systems and, you know, insulation and passive ish
principles and, and, and all that kind of stuff.
So it's like over delivering like crazy on the quality side.
Being at the locations, we've always been like fairly kind of
like prime, prime adjacent neighborhoods, right?

(01:03:36):
We've never been a kind of like zone 2 zone 3 builder.
We just like wanna build where lots of people want to live,
where that urban dense cosmopolitan life is, where
there's transit infrastructure, where there's good, you know,
cafes and restaurants and like less so now once around like
appointment, like it's just really about being around that

(01:03:56):
good cultural stuff. And then they're kind of big,
like they're, they're not sort of small units.
They're like 2-3 units plus, sorry, 2-3 bedrooms plus outdoor
space and some kind of like parking usually not always whole
other thing that we're really digging deep into lately.
Three stories plus basins. And so it sort of delivers all

(01:04:17):
those things with the trade off that like there's some real
density. You're not just, you know,
living in that house on a freehold freestanding detached
thing on a lot. You're building it in a kind of
building with two or three otherunits with something like legal
complexity, like you have some responsibilities to the other

(01:04:39):
people living with you in this small combox.
But the trade off is you get alllike, you get all the things in
exchange for the density. And I think that's like in a
microscale, that's what cities do.
You get access to all this good stuff and you've got to like

(01:04:59):
make nice with people who are like a little bit different from
you. Also great like and thus the
world advances. So I'm a big believer in the
kind of micro and like macro relevance and like importance
of, of of what we're doing. Perhaps.
And is there a design aesthetic that you really try to employ or

(01:05:20):
you try to not employ and it's the wrong word but to to create
for these projects? Yeah, what is it?
I mean, it's so hard to self diagnose your design aesthetic.
There's definitely a point whereyou're like, OK, it's part of
the family now. Like especially working through
the elevations, like what it's going to present to the street

(01:05:44):
and the window and the pattern and the palette.
And there's just a point where like, OK, like, let's go, let's
go in for zoning. But this isn't quite right.
And then, like, you get the zoning and you like tweaked it a
few more times. And I like, fill these
sketchbooks with like, you know,drawing after drawing after
drawing of like, what if we pushto pull them this way, create it
that way? Because on the one hand, it

(01:06:05):
seems like there's not that manyvariables.
Like all of our lots are 182022242730 feet wide, right?
The buildings either have like 0or 18 ginger free footer, 5 foot
side yard setbacks. They're all kind of like 10 or
11 or 12 meters high. They're beating that main
requirement. There's a step back or there
isn't. There's an inset for the entry
or there isn't. It enters on the side or it

(01:06:27):
doesn't and then it's going to be made out of something non
combustible. So in the world of like metal
and brick and you know, we slateone recently, we've got some
tile. But like, you know, there's
like, I mean, within those, the closer you look at it, the
deeper it goes. And then the windows are, I
guess we have Cameron really brought this in early.

(01:06:50):
Like I was coming out of Architects Alliance thinking
that, you know, modern means bigwindows.
We started looking at more historical precedents of urban
housing typologies and so brownstones and like London and
Boston and Brooklyn and we just started getting really obsessed

(01:07:10):
with repetitive window patterns.So there you go.
Repetitive window patterning is like a big part of what we do.
And when we line up our buildings side by side by side,
there's all of these 27 inch 3036 tried windows that are kind
of 4567 feet tall and just a lotof subtle adjustments to those
patterns. What if they line up across the

(01:07:31):
floors? What if they don't is you
instead and, you know, step out?Are they gonna like, do you
things to trick your perspectivefrom certain angles?
Are they going to be perfectly gritted?
I love messing up a grid just a little bit, getting something
that really repeats for a while and then just getting one that's
like just off for a way that really makes sense on the inside
but is a little incongruous on the yes side.
Yeah. So the way they look on the

(01:07:53):
outside, yeah, there's that moment.
And I still couldn't quite like I couldn't write an algorithm to
do it. It's because you're not coding.
That's, I guess it. I don't know to what extent I
could accurately articulate all the parameters around the
decision making, but there's absolutely a point in the
process. You're like, yeah, this is part

(01:08:14):
of the. Family, right?
Right. And then internally it's like
just part of it's just being aware of the world, like what
are the things out there that welike?
You got to spend time in other peoples buildings, you got to
get pushed out of your comfort zone.
You got to deal with your suppliers.
It can't just be like, we found the perfect kitchen faucet in
2012 and I never have to think about it again.

(01:08:36):
Um, maybe there's one that's better and it's twice the price.
So we're not doing either. There's a cheaper one, there's a
different material or like that was nice, but it has this other
drawback. Or now they've got a new model
that allows like the handle and the faucet to be like separated
by a couple of inches of her feet and like that's really cool
and like to be care about foot actuated stuff.
We probably don't. And so you gotta just, I mean,

(01:08:59):
it's like the classic architectsproblem.
Like you just have to know everything and then apply it
with taste, right? So but it there is this like
obsessive thirst for knowledge is exactly the thing, but for
just like knowing what's out there.
So I want to say like, this is away to experiment a little more

(01:09:22):
to like shake our stuff up so that we're not doing like the
same thing over and over. Again, got it.
OK. So let's get into just a brief
little bit about both. I guess it's going to be yours
and cameras. But you know what, what is, what
is your ability to disconnect from this?
And do you have an ability to disconnect from this?

(01:09:43):
And when you do, what does that look like?
Oh, yeah. Knowing that you're no longer in
a band like you were when you'rein your teenagers.
Yeah, No. It's, I mean, we have a family
too. So yeah, that is a there's a
necessity around that, which is great.
You gotta just take your kids totheir activity and the kids
ready for sports and have their things.

(01:10:05):
And, you know, we get out into the countryside and go skiing
and get outside and you got a big dog and a small dog.
So they gotta go out into the world too.
And you haven't get their naturetime.
So, yeah, like getting out into the woods, into the mountains,
like out into the country. It is really an important part

(01:10:27):
of breaking away from it all. And it just knowing cameras way
better than I am. Like you run a business with
your partner and and one of you is going to be the worst one
about like sitting in bed saying, oh, what about that?
And, you know, she's got the discipline to shut me down and
just, you know, book a meeting, We'll talk about it then, which
has been much, much, much betterfor everybody's mental health.

(01:10:51):
But it's, you know, it's our life.
Like there. There is a real sense of
immersion in it too. And I don't dislike that aspect
of it. But yeah, aside of Architects
Alliance, all of my other professional experiences are
really for husband and wife companies working out of their,

(01:11:12):
you know, basements or living rooms are like the rented space
around the corner. Like, I think there is something
really pleasant about the lifestyle that comes from having
your domestic life and your professional life kind of
adjacent to each other. I grew up around my dad's
company. Like, I really like my kids
having my business to, like, come in and out of.

(01:11:34):
And, you know, my littlest knowshow to life.
When we go to a construction site, he goes and finds a broom
and pushes it around and it's adorable.
But like, it's also, there's a value in there that I don't
think there's any other way to pass on except for like that.
Um, no, I think it's clear that I'm not the best at separating
dessert and and it causes me tremendous anxiety and the

(01:11:57):
occasional like panic attack, but you know.
Seemed pretty calm as you described.
That the detachment helps. Yeah.
We've been looking at all kinds of things.
And I think building up a team, we went through this kind of
tragedy. So this guy, Alexis Varia,
worked best for years. And for a long time, it was just

(01:12:18):
the three of us. And he was sort of my
construction guy who could really draw.
And like the relationship between the three of us is the
sort of great triangle of decision making.
And then, you know, crafts today.
Like, so he died three years agotoday.
He's like a young guy. He was in his 30s, He got
cancer. He got better, it came back, He
got better again. And then it came back a third

(01:12:38):
time and he passed away. I'm sorry.
Thanks. And wow, I really wasn't
thinking of going here today. And it's like literally today
and. There's a reason why we booked
this today without knowing it. That like the personal dimension
of it Asahi, which was an incredible tragedy for all

(01:13:01):
everyone who like knew and lovedhim, which was like a tight
circle of people that we knew really well as a business.
It really exposed to us the likefragility of what we did.
Like we're so few key folds thatthat just like the absence of
one person is like a really profound loss that like three
years later, I still noticed little stumbles around.

(01:13:23):
And so we made a pretty serious decision afterwards that just
like embracing professionalization, we started
hiring people that are like meaningfully younger than us
instead of just our peers. We engage like a business coach,
which was like a really great process we should like dig

(01:13:43):
deeper into. We just started writing out our
standard operating procedure document, which is like a really
important document for the firstdraft was like me with my laptop
at the foot of Alex's like bed in the hospital and just trying
to like write down everything that we did.
And that's not useful document. So then like bringing someone
else into the team who can really like as an outsider,

(01:14:06):
breathe life into that document and examine every nervous in it.
So hiring since then has been a lot more focused, like we're a
little less obsessed with finding generalists and and more
about finding people with like really specific skills so that
the company as a whole isn't so reliant on, you know, every
single bit of intelligence and taste passing through like my

(01:14:29):
raining hammers brain back and forth a half dozen times before
it goes out into the world. It's like building a team that
you can trust. And it feels like we're so we're
like 3 years into that process now.
It's hard, it's working, but like it's hard.
And yeah, you're building a company at that point more than
building a building. Yes.
And that's probably a healthier way to think about it, but it's

(01:14:51):
been. It's hard.
It's hard to relinquish in some ways control over some of that
stuff. Yeah.
And beyond just control the. You're gonna try to find the
right words to describe this. But the trust that people are
going to fulfill what you hire them to fulfill when they don't
have the same vested interest inthe business success, when they

(01:15:12):
can decide that they want to, they want to leave.
Yeah. And so you contemplate on a
regular basis, is this person actually really committed to
this? And it takes time to develop
that level of trust with them that they are.
And if you give them more, they can do it.
But really, have you hired the right person?

(01:15:34):
And that lack of you can't because you can't see the next
three years once this is going to.
Look like so you don't know, youdon't know.
There's an analogy here that I think is really useful and I'm
going to have to refer back to this too because those are
absolutely like the doubts that rack me through the process.
But we over deliver on design, which is do like we could.

(01:15:55):
For yourselves. Absolutely.
But I. Just which is part of what's
funny, right? I wouldn't do it any other way,
but it is not lost to me that wecould make significantly less
ambitious buildings architecturally for the same
financial outcomes. I think it's a recipe for
disaster and alienation. Yeah, well, all the other stuff

(01:16:16):
doesn't matter. I mean, OK, because you're not
doing it. But we do, right?
We, we build these buildings to a certain standard and imbue
them with a lot of personality and then sell them, right.
Like we don't even build them for a person where there's this
intense personal like client architect relationship.
Like we built them speculativelyin a way that everyone else in

(01:16:38):
our industry derides, like in the SEC building industry
derides and and we measurably are not more profitable for it.
And any so long as you're focused on anyone project.
I think it allows us to fill brand.
I think it allows us to work with great subcontractors who
really like value having that opportunity and being involved

(01:17:00):
in the process. I think it really builds like
loyalty and longevity out of ouremployees and I think it gives
us a tremendous amount of professional satisfaction.
It's the right thing to do, but it absolutely is like an over
delivery of quality. I think it's the same thing,
like there's an equivalent humanresources attitude here where

(01:17:22):
you just, I think, check in withme in three years, have to treat
your employees as if they're like on a pathway to being owner
operator of a business like themselves, like this one day.
And you're going to give them all of the skills to do that.
You're going to give them all the secrets.

(01:17:43):
You're going to help them avoid all the pitfalls.
You're going to treat them like they are on a path to be able to
do. And I know I just said, like we
really like people with specificskills over generalists in some
way more now, but to the extent that they're interested in
learning anything that we do, like we're here to teach them

(01:18:03):
how to do that thing and to guide them in getting there.
And, and in that way, I mean, one, I think it really helps
them be satisfied that they're not in like a dead end job.
They're like in a job with basically limitless growth
potential. And two, it really forces us to
be in that position that I want to be in where you're like

(01:18:26):
treating everyone as if you're expecting the best of them
because more often than not, like they they deliver that to
you. Yeah.
So that's just start values in acertain way, right.
Like we're getting to make the house is nice and they need to
be, we're going to treat our employees as if they are like
the best people that can. And that ends up, you know, most

(01:18:49):
often they're not being true. And on the occasional time that
it's not a good fit, you gotta like recognize that early and
hopefully have it out and move on.
Yeah, like that's the lesson on that side of it.
So that's like kind of where we got to the next phase was really
about recognizing that we don't have to do all of these things.

(01:19:14):
They're like this mid career phase, I like to call it.
Now. We're like, we have powers and
we have these sort of like abilities and track record and
all that and are starting to getlike a tiny bit of recognition
at least within the very like narrow niche of exactly what we
do. Yeah.
And then it's really about like growth and scale and how can we

(01:19:37):
make more of this happen withouthaving to suffer the risk of
financing it all ourselves. And, and that's been the kind of
most recent thing like how do weengage with other people
financially to produce more of these kinds of buildings, right?
And that's like the next decade.Well, we're gonna have to have

(01:20:00):
you back on to talk about that and another couple years.
Sure. Evan, I greatly appreciate you
doing this with me. I, I'm, I'm happy that we first
connected about this. I'm happy that you were so
eloquently able to describe bothwhat you do, but the pro and the
process and how you do it. It.
It has been such an enjoyment for me to be able to sit and

(01:20:21):
chat with you about all of this,as was the first few phone calls
that we had when we were talkingabout doing this.
So thank you for taking time outof the day to do this with me.
You're an incredibly, you have to interview and it's a real
pleasure to go through some of these old things that I haven't
reflected on in a really long time.
So yeah, thanks very much for. Having well, and I'm also really
happy to know that we were able to record this on a very, very

(01:20:43):
important day. Yeah, it's an anniversary for
sure. Hey, thanks very much.